


Someone Back Home

by fatcr0w



Series: The Adventures of Snap Wilson [1]
Category: Captain America (Comics), Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Gen, Gen or Pre-Slash, Graphic Description, Just really INTENSE bromance, Minor Character Death, No Romance, No Sex, No Smut, POV Sam, Pre-Canon, Pre-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Pre-Slash, Steve ain't in this one, War, you might cry...a LOT
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-05-22
Updated: 2015-05-21
Packaged: 2018-03-31 16:01:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3984154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fatcr0w/pseuds/fatcr0w
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This whole mess started with a simple question. The same military small talk that's been around since mankind started ganging up on each other. </p>
<p>"You got someone waiting on you back home?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Someone Back Home

**Author's Note:**

> Based on a Tumblr headcanon request about Sam & Snap Wilson. There are a lot of military abbreviations used since it's Sam's POV, i've defined some of the more unknown ones in end notes. 
> 
> Enjoy~

This whole mess started with a simple question. The same military small talk that's been around since mankind started ganging up on each other.

"You got someone waiting on you back home?"

There wasn't much else to say, at 0200 hours Wednesday morning as they waited in the dark for the surprise attack to come blaring out of the central tower. They'd been paired up as wingmen for BEAST week. That meant they took EC duty together, ate together, and completed every task from the relative comfort of each other's back pocket. It was a lot of time together considering they had barely spoken two words to each other for the other six weeks of Basic training.

"Just my family," Sam gruffed with a shrug. He didn't say that he'd been dumped for joining. Apparently even a desire to use the GI bill to his benefit didn't cut it when you're 'throwing your lot in with fascist swine!' But Sam just shrugged in the dark, leaning forward on his toes and rocking to keep awake, "Mom, dad, two sisters, younger."

He heard more than saw the other recruit turn his head in interest, his heavy gear shifting in the night silence. Riley, the one who went by his last name even during personal time and once made the hilarious mistake of calling the TI "coach". One of the many, many white boys that this base seemed to have plucked fresh off the local football field the very moment those Friday night lights shut off. He hadn't made much time to bother with them at all. Harlem had its diversity, yes, but handling white boys in the deep, deep South was a matter he was wholly untrained on. They'd all gotten the approximation of a teamwork-makes-the-dream-work speech in the first week, but that didn't mean they had to be cool outside of exercises.

Sam shrugged, adjusting his heavy backpack to distribute the weight on his aching muscles. He didn't need to make small talk with this guy. Sure, they were paired up, and the man was good in the clutch, but after Basic, they'd all go their separate ways. Sam had his eye on the Para-rescue. He was an adrenaline junkie, but he much preferred helping people get to safety rather than blowing them up, contrary to whatever Cordelia _thought_ he was going to be doing.

"Well ain't ya gonna ask me the same?" Riley said, his tone conversational.

Sam looked up, and was absolutely sure his incredulous face could be seen in the pitch black of night, "Uh... Yea, you got someone special...back home?"

And that's where it begins. Riley gestures, wildly, the little light from the moon and stars picking up his frantic movements as he tells the story under his breath.

"So... I'm going to the Animal Hospital right? I'm gonna get myself the meanest, snarliest, crankiest son of a bitch they've got there, just so I can keep him in the yard and have him bark at folks trying to bother my mama. Then I get there, right, and I-"

A loud crash sounds from a speaker system cleverly hidden in the trees. It's time for another battle drill.

"I'll tell ya later," the man says as they start waking up their squadron, preparing for yet another long, weary day.

~~~~~~~~

It was seven months later when Sam heard the story again. Come to find out, they'd been paired up by their TI because they were both heading for the PJ track and qualified with their PT scores and pre-enlistment grades. Since then, Sam and Riley had become close. They were paired up for almost everything, if not grouped with other pairs for exercises. Their bunks were next to each other, and they almost always took the same watch. They'd long since graduated from basic and passed through a long list of grueling specialty courses to end up smack dab in Combat Medic training.

Somehow, Sam had gone 4 months without hearing about Riley's special someone... That is until one day during midday mess, someone brought it up again, and Riley began to wax poetic.

"I see this cute little fucker here," to Sam's surprise he reaches into his pocket and pulls out a worn old picture of himself in full football gear and a tiny white kitten, smiling like the furry little puff has personally named him MVP.

The rest of the mess erupts in hoots of laughter as the photo is passed around. Even at 16 Riley was some kind of giant, the kitten is microscopic in one hand. The Riley now isn't much different, it's hard to imagine this big, corn-fed boy with something as tiny, fragile, and cute as that tiny thing.

"Yea, he's staying with my mamma for now. He keeps her company since I've run off to war!" he clenched his fist, pumping it in the air as a few others cheered and laughed, passing the photo back. Riley tucked it safely back into his front pocket, still smiling his constant sunny-weather smile.

As they were summoned out of the mess hall for their afternoon classes, Sam casually asked under his breath, "So what's his name?"

"Snap," Riley said with a chuckle, "Strange right? It'll make sense when you meet him."

Sam laughed noncommittally back. He was friends with Riley now, sure, but he wasn't completely sure he was friends enough to visit his mom's house and meet his cat. It was going to take more than seven months of training to get to that level.

~~~~~~~~

They ended up having much more than seven months to get to know each other. The two were inseparable, even before they reached a new facility, word of Riley and Wilson reached officer ears. They were both devastatingly good at whatever they did, and when paired up those skills seemed to reach exponential levels. They somehow even managed to make _the_ Sergeant Payne himself give an eyebrow raise and an approving nod during the Recovery Specialist graduation test, which was an even rarer occurrence than a medal of honor.

They stood together, two out of ten in the graduation ceremony, maroon berets proudly placed. They served together in their first tour, flying fixed wing extraction missions.  They reviewed the debriefing packet for their re-designation to the experimental test program, and both jumped at the chance to try out for the EXO program.

By the time they received their wing-packs and tested them in the Nevada sky over Area 51, Sam has heard Snap Riley's origin story exactly 172 times. The bastard finds a way to tell it to each and every new person he comes across. He whips out the photo every damn time, like it's gonna change.

Sam rolls his eyes as retelling number 173 ends up with a punishment of an extra shift on dorm duty. Not that Riley really minds, he flashes a smile at Sam whose completely un-impressed by his antics. He was going to tell it again, probably to the cute bartender off base when they took some shore leave. Sam shook his head, how the hell did he get away with it all?

~~~~~~~

Three years and another tour later, Sam had lost count of the times he'd heard the origin of Snap Wilson. He heard it when they deployed, when they joined up with the ranks overseas, when they were riding over dusty dirt roads and when they were playing with the children along a rural street.

He'd heard it whispered to more dead and dying bodies than he wanted to count. The picture now had a rip in the top, a spasm from a man's hand as he tried to fight the pain of his gun wound, a crinkle in the middle as a woman failed to breathe through the smoke of a car bomb, a red fingerprint in the bottom corner, a child that tried to get a better look as they bled out from an IED.

Each and every time, Riley tucked that photo back into his top pocket, patted it gently and gave Sam a smile, even if after a while it stopped reaching his eyes so easily.

They looked out for each other then, when the night grew pitch black over the desert and the sky was splattered like paint with Stars Sam would pull out his own pictures, new, crisp, freshly sent over from his family back home.

"Here man," Sam said, handing him a part of the stack, "Jody has been on a mission for you"

Riley gave a weak laugh as he tried to look at the cats in the moonlight. Sam turned on his bunk, watching the way the shadows moved through their window and played over his face, "Hey man, I know you tell that damn origin story every day, but what about after that?"

Riley smiled so wide that his teeth glowed under the moonlight, "Well about that-"

~~~~~~~~

The very next day was the day that Sam knew he'd never forget. The mission wasn't routine. It wasn't routine at all.  They were PJ's dammit. Yes they could extract, but that was for injured allies and civilians, not anyone who was actively trying to kill them.

 They were supposed to capture this guy, Khalid Khandil who'd gone to ground in Bakhmala. The group had captured some anti-aircraft weaponry, Stark tech that had been in US military possession before the raid. The sophistication of it meant that it could easily be tuned to take out most large bodied threats, down to the general size of an SUV. Human-sized objects or, for that matter, birds, were outside of its scope.

Faced with retreat or failure, the EXO-7 Falcons Peregrine & Kestrel were reassigned to the task. Their debriefing was short and to the point, at 0200 hours, just one hour before deployment. There wasn't nearly enough time to wrap their heads around it, but they hadn't come all this way for nothing.

When they dropped out of the mother ship in the wee hours of the night, they knew this wasn't routine. All was silent, too silent as they swooped down, wings set to glide until the last moment, when they powered jets simultaneously to sweep up. A tight squadron of fighters was coming in behind, ready to distract the inevitable skirmish that would occur when flying men ambush a tent city.

The first shells lit up the night sky like so many fireworks. It was nothing new to them both, as they weave and turn, keeping an eye on wind currents and heat signatures, listening through the dampeners for the sound of friendly fire.

Sam flies too low, he's grazed by a bullet as he tries to get a confirmation of the target. There's no time to tend to it now. He just ignores it, repeating the same mantra he's had in his head since their first tour.

_I'm not allowed to die. I haven't met Snap yet._

Resolute, Sam climbs back up, Riley on his heels. They reach cruising altitude and hover, out of the line of fire. Most of their communication is in hand signals up here, the wind is too harsh and fast for them to get any vocalizations out. Riley waves his pointer finger, circling it down. He has a read.

Sam's HUD lights up as the confirmation is transmitted. It's now or never. Go in, extract Khandil, and get out. The cleanup crew was coming in hot at that very minute. They had 5 minutes, 8 if they pushed it, before allied aircraft and subsequent anti-aircraft missiles clogged their escape route.

Riley dove down first, Sam falling into formation behind him, wings closed to lower his profile as he fell in Riley's wake. As they reached 2000 feet the wings popped out, braking hard before shooting back, continuing their swoop. Sam pulled out, they were going to cut Khandil off from two sides, blocking him into a short rocky slope away from most of his followers.

Sam saw it as if it was in slow motion, Riley's wings spread for his final braking descent, and from behind a boulder, an RPG hit him, taking out his right wing and sending him into a fiery spin, 1000 feet at the least towards the rocky slope. Even as Sam dives in faster, shooting the assailant square in the chest, he catches Riley struggling with the emergency release.

He continues to fall, even as enemy fire rains on him, his right wing trailing in a fiery blaze behind his body as he careens headfirst towards the unforgiving ground. The sun is rising behind the rock face when Sam loses sight of him. There's no way to hear the thud of metal and rock, or the explosion of their fuel impacting over the sound of anti-aircraft missiles.

Sam digs in, landing on Khandil with a kick to the chest and immediately swooping back up. The assailants are less eager to shoot when they take note of Sam's hostage, and soon he is out of range.

He makes it out to the mother ship, flying into the helicopter and dropping Khandil like so much luggage. He's already turned to drop back out and extract Riley when he is bodily pulled back into the Apache, forced into a seat. He tries to get up, he has to go back, he has to extract Riley. He can't leave him there, he-

_He's not allowed to die, he hasn't told me about Snap and the catnip plant._

Sam is forced back down again, the restraints forcibly attached. The helicopter is retreating, the jets are retreating, everyone is leaving Riley behind, no more than a trail of smoke among the others.

A combat medic waves a blue-gloved hand in his face. He stills, recognizing the young woman from one of their many trainings. She shakes her head, holding up fingers to check his lucidity. She disapproves, oxygen is applied. He feels a prick, he's being sedated.  He won't be going back for Riley.

_Please, God, he's my-...He's all his Ma has._  

Only as the mask is secured over his nose and mouth does he feel how raw his throat suddenly is. He closes his dry mouth and realizes that he's been screaming like a demon from the lowest pit of hell. Even Khandil, who is being clapped in chains at the edge of his vision stares at him as though he is not seeing a man, but a dangerous, wounded monster.

_What about Paris? What about college? What about his mama?_

He can feel the hazy feeling of the sedation working through his IV drip.

_...What about Snap?_

He finds himself tearing up as the world around him goes black.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are appreciated! This was not beta read so if there are mistakes let me know.
> 
> ~~~~~~~~  
> ABBREVIATIONS  
> BEAST- Basic Expeditionary Airmen Skills Training (a really hardcore week of combat drills for Airmen)  
> EC duty- Entry Controller duty (two men work a 2 hour shift to control who comes in and out of barracks, also they are in charge of patrol. Very few people are allowed in without an escort. The dorms/barracks/camp must be guarded 24/7)  
> GI- Government Issue (thought you'd like to know that after all. The GI bill is the Government Issue bill for government issued education, like a uniform is also GI lol.)  
> TI- Training Instructor (definitely a coach with only slightly more yelling.)  
> PJ- Para-Jumper, also used for Para-Rescue  
> PT- Physical Training  
> HUD- Heads Up Display, shows on Sam's goggles, similar to the Iron Man holo-screens.


End file.
